Although there has been speculation about what a China Mobile deal really means for Apple, almost no-one has argued that it is not a positive move: since it opens up Apple’s iPhone market to a potential customer base of 763 million. (That’s more than twice the population of the United States!)

Apple is hoping that the China Mobile deal will make the company competitive in a country where the iPhone currently occupies just 6 percent of the smartphone market share — according to research firm Canalys who analyzed Q3 sales in 2013.

China Mobile has claimed that it has already received more than 1 million pre-orders for the iPhone, while analysts estimates for yearly unit sales vary between 10-24 million iPhones.

Although few people would expect Apple to start waging a competitive price war with other brands to raise market penetration, a subsidy battle may well be on its way — with rivals China Unicom and China Telecom (both of which sell the iPhone at present) already slashing their prices to offer new deals on iPhone contracts.